Poetize

This evening after basketball, I found myself looking for poetry to read on the Internet. Specifically, I looked up EE Cummings & Edgar Allan Poe for some reason. Somehow, I got sucked into an hour of reading poetry aloud, to myself. I was enjoying the feel & sound of the syllables rolling off of my tongue, the height & fall of my voice into the air for no one's pleasure but my own. This was the last poem I read.

Serenade by Edgar Allan Poe

   "So sweet the hour, so calm the time,
  I feel it more than half a crime,
  When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,
  To mar the silence ev'n with lute.
  At rest on ocean's brilliant dyes
  An image of Elysium lies:
  Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,
  Form in the deep another seven:
  Endymion nodding from above
  Sees in the sea a second love.
  Within the valleys dim and brown,
  And on the spectral mountain's crown,
  The wearied light is dying down,
  And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky
  Are redolent of sleep, as I
  Am redolent of thee and thine
  Enthralling love, my Adeline.
  But list, O list,- so soft and low
  Thy lover's voice tonight shall flow,
  That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem
  My words the music of a dream.
  Thus, while no single sound too rude
  Upon thy slumber shall intrude,
  Our thoughts, our souls- O God above!
  In every deed shall mingle, love."

Maroon Bells Snowmass

I've posted the highlight photos with captians on MySpace. If anyone wants to see them & you don't know how to get me on MySpace, click the link to the left, under 'good vibrations.'

The flight to CO was long (9 hrs in air) but clear & smooth the whole way. Pops only had to dodge a bit of rain showers once we were about to land in Leadville. We landed there a) because my father likes it & b) because the elevation is above 10,000' in town & it's a good place to acclimate if you're going to be hiking & c) it's still the highest airport in N.Am. at 9,927'. We stayed there a couple days before flying to Aspen to catch the bus up to Maroon Lake where we started the hike.

Pops & I planned on hiking 4-5 days across the 4-pass. We ended up spending 6 nights, 7 days. It was snow packed, especially on the N-face peaks, which is what we crossed for the 1st 2 passes, Maroon Peak & Frigid Air Pass. After sliding down 100' by steping in some soft snow, Pops sprained his ankle on the rock that stopped him. After going over the 2nd pass & realizing that the next 2 would have just as much snow, we decided to re-route. Due to high, High waters (we're talking raging whitewater in many places, some we crossed, some we didn't dare) we had to re-route a couple times. Our 2nd re-route was to cross under Genevea falls, about a 5' across gorge that angles down forever, one of the white-water havens. The current was way too swift & our doom too much to recover, so we sat around enjoying the scene, watching a mule deer that felt comfortable enough with us to lay down, moved a log to attempt another bridge. It wasn't going to work, so we headed back to where we came from. The plan-to go up the Cliff Trail above Genevea lake, cross there (less swift, hopefully & probably not less cold) & hope that there weren't too many patches of icy slope like we encountered prior. Most of the hike was on the S-side so we were good. Any snow that we encountered, we could handle & for the most part the trail was easy enough to find, as opposed to our 3'-10' patches of hope after hours of being off trail prior. After the Cliff Trail we took a Jeep road from hell, continuous up-climb for miles! On the 7th day, we ended up coming out in Marble & hitched a ride to Carbondale to be able to catch the bus back to Aspen, where the plane was parked. The folks that gave us a ride (Micheal & Lisa) own a store in Redstone & just moved here a year ago from Tuson, AZ. They gave us the "tour" about Marble & Redstone, both of which are tiny towns but interesting nontheless.

Upon our return to Aspen we stopped by the White River Forestry station to tell them about our time up there. Shoot! I still need to send photos to them too. Carla, a really super fly rescue lady there gave us high fives for breaking the trail to & over the 2nd pass (she also said we were lucky). She also wanted to know every detail about the trail conditions as this was a record snowfall year & folks are calling them all day about trail conditions.



Other news:
I just returned last night from CO & house shopping in Nederland. I put a bid in on a house, but with this new counter-offer I think I should just walk away from the beauty that it is (I don't want to scrape to be able to visit NC). I also looked at near a dozen of other homes & I have a feel for the neighborhoods, so looking over the Internet will be easier. I'm under contract with the Realter until Sept. so she'll be at my beck-&-call until then too, at least. Wish me luck!

CO Slideshow

Let's see if this works. :-)

Hover the curser to see captions...

Didj snippit

Sydney Social

This is a few day's old post that I managed to add onto MySpace when Blogger wouldn't let me sign on. The Internet here is kind of slow so it's taking forever to add something like this or send e-mails. I'm just going to have to forget about uploading photos for now.


I figure that I should update all of you who know I'm in Australia about what I'm actually doing whilst here. Randomly...

So far we've done a lot of city dwelling, looking at parks, gardens, the Parliament House, harbour, the zoo, eating out & shopping. Last night we saw Edward Scissorhands at the Opera House. The music was superb & the dancing was quite syncronized. There are also a ton of beaches right near the city. We went to Bondai to walk around, oggle surfers, hunt for shells, etc. The water temp. was actually not that bad. Long term, it would be cold though. Manly beach is supposed to be more where the locals go; we're going to get there one of these days.

There's a holiday on Monday so we're going to go to Queensland, NE of here to or towards Brisbane (to avoid some holiday traffic). I'm guessing we'll be driving through some semi-rural areas anyway. One of Marina's friend's has someting to do with a football (Euro) around here so maybe we'll go to the Olympic stadium to see a game this week. On a musical note, I've heard that Midnight Oil is Australia's 'political' band (I'm writing it here so that I won't forget :-).
It's been raining practically every day so far, sometimes pooring steadily. I think we're going to have a slow day today, b/c we've been going nonstop. We might just go to a couple of museums.
Ok, before I go I have a story for you. So, the US President came to APEX for a big G8 Summit meeting with several world leaders. This might have been within the last couple of years. It was a big to do & many of the streets were closed off, making it a Big incomvenience to a lot of people. The city traffic here is crazy & the streets aren't gridded, it's like a handfull of cooked spaghetti. So there's a TV show called "Joke Chasers" & they decided they would see just how far they could go. (This might be on uTube out there somewhere.) They rented a limo, one dressed like Osama Binladen, & there were 2 guys running alongside the limo while they were driving. The "security" guys had badges, saying "Joke Chasers." They drove right into the middle of all the high security near the Intercontinental Hotel where the presidents were staying. Security stopped them of course, through several levels, so they showed them their badges. Of course, they were waved through. Finally after "Osama" actually got out of the car & started walking around did someone suspect that something was arye.

G'day :-)